It's not a solid drop idea, it's only speculation. That's as far as I've thought into the mob, and I'm asking what other people think about it, and how to make it better.

On this forum, you should always have a completed idea. Or completed enough so people can form a solid opinion on it. If you're unsure about something, you should take some extra time to think that out until you are. People probably won't check back on threads just to see if a blank was filled.

Anyway, I don't have any ideas for drop choices or what they do. But if you pick souls as a drop, perhaps combining them with sand will make soul sand?

This is a really nice model! It's not really what the fallen would look like though. Also, I agree and i'm trying to think of a better, more useful drop that works well for a ghost. Ectoplasm maybe? If so what could it do? I'm thinking a "cleansing table" that removes enchantments.

This is your suggestion, you gotta come up with the mechanics yourself and not leave blanks for us. Though you did give an idea for the ectoplasm, but still.

Adding gold as currency would be a terrible decision. Emeralds were thrown in to be something original in terms of currency, and not gold which an infinite amount of games always overuse... Don't see any point in the "broken box" thing.

I'm seeing a lot of people with stars in their eyes. In that the "on paper" part of the idea is seen and not the blatant resource costing negatives. No support. I don't want to think of the eye-bleeding, terribad animations I'd be seeing in a full server. And even if this is optional, the resource cost is still there.

I should have used some different wording. What if you wanted to fire an arrow tipped with poison and wanted the arrow to easily zoom through water? There'd be need to be a brand new line of item ID's just for prismarine tipped arrows, when one enchantment could cover up the whole thing way easier.

Sorry I did not understand, what you mean when you say you "cannot see an issue", and neither with "corny lore"... Can you explain me ?

Your idea has nothing that makes me want to not support. And a lot of people post ideas about finding books with stories in them and all that crap, which doesn't land as a good idea since Minecraft isn't a story-based game.

I don't know if I want shadows implemented in a game where the light by itself is super buggy and unreliable. Assuming it could be pulled off with no weird bugs, it would be alright.

Colored lighting has been brought up for years here. The only issue I see with it is color blending issues, which would be very likely with - again - the game's goofy light handling. But still a good idea. The lanterns are fine as long as they don't bring dynamic lighting. A spotlight is also fine, which is strangely probably my favorite part of this suggestion.

What if hammered blocks increased the hardness (like you said) and also made iron golems created by you attack players who try to break them?

I'd recommend scrapping the whole anti-grief concept with this hammer. It doesn't have much purpose in singleplayer and in multiplayer the balance would be all over the place. Mechanics like this go in both directions. What if I surround your house with a bunch of blocks I placed and then harden them with this hammer?

The Iron Golem idea is weird. The mob is about is protecting villagers and picking off hostile mobs. Throwing in a new mechanic just for the hopes of balancing this one tool is just an awkward design move.

That way it is possible to escape; it would just take longer and possibly be dangerous if the builder put iron golems near by. This would also add more reason to build iron golems in the first place. Another possibility (though unrelated to hammers) is to provide the player with a way to add silverfish or other monsters to blocks.

If I surround your house with hammered blocks and then make Iron Golems myself, you're getting punished for trying to escape your own house.